Sadness from Connecticut....

What's the reaction in Connecticut to their Bishops' aboutface on Plan B?

Connecticut Catholic has a couple of posts:

Outrage and Shame Over Plan B in Connecticut

Quote:

"Let me refresh their memories from their own Connecticut Conference of Catholic Bishop's Q&A still, temporarily I presume, located on their website:
7) Connecticut's Catholic hospitals have said that Plan B can sometimes cause an abortion. Is this correct?
The primary mechanism of Plan B is to prevent ovulation, and therefore conception.
The secondary mechanism of Plan B is to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum, which is abortion. This is confirmed on the manufacturer's web site that says, Plan B may also work by preventing it (the fertilized egg) from attaching to the uterus (womb).
8) Is it a true statement to say that forcing Catholic hospitals to provide Plan B under all cases is equivalent to forcing Catholic hospitals to perform an abortion?
Yes. When Plan B cannot act as a contraceptive, it can only act to cause an abortion. Forcing Catholic hospitals to provide Plan B in these situations forces the hospitals to perform abortions."

And:

Local reaction to Plan B Sucker Punch

Quote:

"Mark Pazniokas of the Hartford Courant had a brief report in CAUCUS - Politics from CT to DC, and reports that Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. stated: 'For those very same bishops to do a 180-degree turnabout two days before the legislation becomes law, without any adequate explanation, is incomprehensible,' Cafero said. 'It shows apparent disregard and disrespect for the political process and those of us who worked in their behalf.'"

Pray for our brothers and sisters (including our Bishops) in Connecticut!
Posted by Gibbons Cooney

"Second Miracle of Mary"

Three young nuns from Nashville, Tennessee, as volunteers in Sydney, Australia, are helping to prepare for World Youth Day next July.

WHAT do three religious sisters pack when they are sent to assist the largest religious gathering in Australian history? Answer: 600 rosary beads, personal prayer books, two guitars, mum's cookies and a frisbee.

Sister Mary Rachel, Sister Anna and Sister Mary Madeline are members of the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee. They arrived three weeks ago, at the invitation of the Australian event co-ordinator, Bishop Anthony Fisher, himself a Dominican.

Their presence, at a time when many sisters have shed the habit, has been a source of public wonderment. During a recent sightseeing tour of Taronga Zoo, a visiting party of school children bounced excitedly yelling, "nuns, nuns, nuns" as their teachers sought to hush them.

On their arrival at Sydney Airport, an Australian man quipped to them: "Three nuns, all in habits, all happy and young. It's the second miracle of Mary."

Sister Anna went to World Youth Day in Rome in 2000 and left transformed. "There was this moment in the [overnight] vigil," she says. "We'd walked 20 kilometres, it was 1am and we were trying to get to sleep.

"I woke up and the Pope's address had been broadcast. He said, 'There are so many of you out there but I see you one by one and I say do not be afraid to follow Christ and live radically.'
"I heard it and I thought, he is speaking to me. It was a moment of grace given of courage."

“Recent revelations that even Mother Teresa had expressed a fear of abandonment by God are evidence that no life can be perfectly fulfilled,” Sister Mary Madeline said. “It reinforced the Christian hope for a new Pentecost, a fresh kindling of the Holy Spirit in each Catholic” (From the Sidney Morning Herald)

Another Gianna Molla

A Melbourne GP refused high-level chemotherapy, ultimately sacrificing her life to save her unborn daughter.

Dr Ellice Hammond, 37, lost her battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma three weeks after daughter Mia Ellice was born nine weeks prematurely at the Monash Medical Centre, where she remains in neonatal intensive care.

Dr Hammond was diagnosed in the 22nd week of pregnancy and refused high-level chemotherapy that could have saved her but might have killed Mia.

Dr Hammond had three reduced-strength chemotherapy treatments during the pregnancy, but the cancer returned worse than before each time and full-strength treatments following Mia's birth did not save her.

Husband, Peter Wojcik said he was proud of his wife's devotion to their child.
“It feels like I got robbed of a wife and a mother,” he said.
“But she would just want what is best for Mia and for everyone to love her and carry on with life."

Mexico City Policy

Here’s message from PRI (Population Research Institute) that demands attention:

Pro-abortionists in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have voted to gut Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City Policy. The Mexico City Policy, as you probably know, is the 23-year old U.S. policy that forbids U.S. taxpayer support of any organization that performs or even promotes abortion.

House and Senate committees will now meet to settle their minor differences on this pro-abortion legislation. If – and probably when – the House and Senate agree on this pro-abortion bill, ONLY a Presidential veto can prevent this catastrophe for preborn babies.

So it’s critical that we immediately tell the President to veto this destruction of the pro-life Mexico City Policy if it reaches his desk!
Planned Parenthood’s brand new river of babies’ blood
Planned Parenthood’s worldwide killing machine stands to reap vast sums of U.S. aid from the destruction of our Mexico City Policy.

This bill allows massive U.S. taxpayer funding of worldwide condom and abortifacient distribution – U.S. tax money that will allow Planned Parenthood to free-up its existing funds for surgical abortions on a frightening scale.

Untold numbers of babies will die if America’s Mexico City Policy is gutted!
Only the beginning of the new “Slaughter of the Innocents”
As you read these words, pro-abortionists are giddy beyond belief at the prospect of finally crushing our pro-life Mexico City Policy.

NARAL Pro-Choice America brags that this legislation is just “. . . an important first step . . .” for “reproductive health services for women overseas.” That’s a slick way of saying “abortion on a scale beyond belief.” (“NARAL” stands for National Abortion Rights Action League.)
And since this is just the “first step” in the abortionists' new long-range plans . . .
We’ve got to stop them cold – NOW!

Here’s what we have to do right now . . .
First, we’ve got to FLOOD the White House with Petitions to Save America’s Pro-Life Mexico City Policy. We’ve got to tell the President that we expect him to hold true to his promise to veto all anti-life legislation that reaches his desk. We’ve got to hold his feet to the fire!

Here's What's with Kids Today!

God Bless our young people!

The following is from a Letter to the Editor to the "Georgia Bulletin" by a young man who lives in Peachtree, Georgia.

"I am 16 years old, and for the past 11 months, I have attended the traditional Latin Mass weekly, while still attending the Novus Ordo Mass during the week. Because of this, I decided to address certain points made by Carroll Sterne in the Sept. 6 edition of The Georgia Bulletin. Mr. Sterne speaks about the type of Mass that someones of a younger generation is drawn to, and I thought that a teenager’s point of view might be helpful."

"Mr. Sterne in his letter gives voice to the opinion of many of today’s liturgists when he says that no one from a younger generation would be drawn to the Latin Mass (many take this even further and assume that we would not like a reverent Novus Ordo Mass either.). This opinion causes many of those who plan modern liturgies to do veritable back flips in an attempt to draw teenagers and young adults in. Sometimes this works, but it has a side effect: by doing these things, liturgists show that they have absolutely no faith in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to change the lives of those in my generation. My generation knows about this lack of faith, we are able to see it every time we go to a “teen Mass” and experience priests ad-libbing prayers in an attempt to make them more relevant to us."

H/T again, to Curt Jester.

What's with Kids these Days?

Fr. Phillip Powell, OP, has an answer. Sample:

"Teach the apostolic faith full on…no compromises on basic doctrine or dogma. This generation of college students can smell an intellectual/spiritual weasel a hundred miles away. They would rather hear the bald-faced Truth and struggle with it than listen to a priest/minister try to sugar-coat a difficult teaching in the vain search for popularity or 'hipness.'”

H/T Curt Jester.

More Great Stem-Cell News!

Umbilical Cord-blood stem-cells, that is.

From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

"Children with sickle cell disease were cured following umbilical cord blood transplants from their siblings, according to findings reported Thursday in Washington, D.C., by doctors from Children's Hospital Oakland.

Of 43 youths across the country who received transplants from compatible siblings, 90 percent were cured, said blood specialist Dr. Bertram Lubin, senior vice president of research at Children's Hospital."

Remind us again why California voters shelled out $3billion+ for immoral, embryo destroying stem-cell research, while cord-blood and adult stem cells are curing people right and left?

Catholic Democrats?

The "Catholic Democrats" national organization is starting a California state affiliate purportedly to represent Catholic policy perspectives within the State Democratic Party, and publicize how "the Democratic Party is working to advance humanistic goals so well-articulated in Catholic Social Teaching." (California Catholic Daily)

Unfortunately, the "Catholic Democrats" statement, while promoting many Catholic social policies, have omitted this part of a quote from the "Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life" (approved by Pope John Paul II and signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.):

"Laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death. In the same way, it is necessary to recall the duty to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo … Those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a 'grave and clear obligation to oppose' any law that attacks human life. For them and for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.''

Serious question: Are “Catholic Democrats” Catholic?

Immoral Research vs. Good Science

Many times in the Saints Peter and Paul Church Bulletin, under Fr. Malloy's direction, we asked the question: "Are California voters having second thoughts about allocating $3billion+ for immoral, embryo destroying stem-cell research, while adult and cord blood stem cells are curing things right and left?" But we have to keep asking, because the mainstream media, at least in California, with its anti-life bias, refuses to cover the tremendous work being done with cord-blood and adult stem cells.

Today's story, even the MSM couldn't avoid. It was covered in the Globe and Mail , The Canadian Press , the Washington Post, & Scientific American:

"It is an idea that may make many men cross their legs. But researchers in the United States say stem cells harvested from a man's testicles could one day be used to repair his damaged heart, kidneys or even his brain.

The scientists have found a way to easily identify stem cells in the testicles of adult mice, and to coax them to become brain cells, muscle cells, heart cells, blood cells and even blood vessels. The next step is to see if they can do the same thing in humans.

The procedure would involve removing a small piece of testicle – about the same amount used for a biopsy." (Globe and Mail)

"The first thing that was the most exciting was that in vitro (in lab dishes) even, we've seen these cells become what's very clearly heart tissue because it contracts rhythmically," Seandel said Wednesday from New York. "That's one type of tissue that you can't really miss." (Canadian Press)

Bravo to our good scientists, who work tirelessly to better the human condition, while maintaining high ethical standards. May God bless them in their work!

Posted by Gibbons Cooney

Warming -- Fact or Fiction?

More than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting the current man-made global warming scare, according to a new analysis of peer-reviewed literature by the Hudson Institute.

The assessment supports another study on which WND reported recently, one that revealed carbon dioxide levels were largely irrelevant to global warming. Those results prompted Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, to quip, "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide."

The newest analysis was released by Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery, who said of the 500 scientists who have refuted at least one element of the global warming scare, more than 300 have found evidence that a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to the current circumstances since the last Ice Age and that such warmings are linked to variations in the sun's irradiance.

"This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," he said.

Thank You

Thanks, Governor, for your veto on Leno's bill.

Courts should enforce, not make laws.

Same-sex marriage is still under attack, but thank God for this victory.

Thanks to the Governor, not the legislature: the will of the people still counts in California.

Sunday Mass

The Holy Father said during the Mass he celebrated at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, on the last day of his three-day apostolic trip to Austria this month:

” Going to Sunday Mass is not just a rule to follow, but rather an inner necessity."

Bnedict XVI centered on the mantra of the early Christian martyrs of Abitene: "Without Sunday we cannot live. Sunday has been transformed in our Western societies into the weekend, into leisure time."

"Leisure time is certainly something good and necessary, especially amid the mad rush of the modern world. Yet if leisure time lacks an inner focus, an overall sense of direction, then ultimately it becomes wasted time that neither strengthens nor builds us up.

"Free time requires a focus -- the encounter with him who is our origin and goal."

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, explained that there had been a movement in Austria to defend "Sunday from tendencies to empty this day of its meaning."

Recalling the example of the early Christians, Benedict XVI explained that for them Sunday Mass was not a "precept," but rather "an inner necessity.""Does this attitude of the Christians of that time apply also to us who are Christians today?" the Pope asked.

The Holy Father answered: "Yes, it does, we too need a relationship that sustains us, that gives direction and content to our lives."We too need access to the Risen One, who sustains us through and beyond death. We need this encounter which brings us together, which gives us space for freedom, which lets us see beyond the bustle of everyday life to God's creative love, from which we come and toward which we are traveling."
(Zenit.org)